Tech Investment in London

Leonie Cooper: How has the work of your Deputy Mayor for Business and the work of London and Partners contributed to the record investment of $9.7bn in London’s tech sector in 2019? https://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/uk-tech-sector-beats-us-and-china-lead-global-growth-2019

The Mayor: Being a successful fintech entrepreneur himself, my Deputy Mayor for Business champions the tech sector both at home and abroad. He has held meetings with major investors and global tech companies, spoken at major tech events (such as Money 2020), and led trade missions to attract investment into London and support London tech firms to expand internationally.
He chairs London & Partners (L&P) who directly supported £58m in inward investment within tech sectors in the first three quarters of 2019/20, a significant proportion of the £91m in business investment brought to the city by L&P in that period. Their work contributed to London’s diverse tech eco system and enabled the city to attract record investment.
L&P also runs my International Business Programme (MIBP) which supports fast-growing tech companies in London to trade internationally. Companies that have taken part in MIBP, such as Starling, Babylon and Monzo, have gone on to secure VC funding, helping to contribute to the record levels of investment in London’s tech sector. Since the programme was founded in 2016 it has helped over 900 companies, created over 1573 jobs, secured £193m in export wins and generated £486m in investment.
My Deputy Mayor for Business oversees programmes such as TechInvest series, which has been a huge success in unlocking investment into London's technology sector. There is a 25% investment rate for companies taking part, an average audience investment capacity of £2.2bn, £10.3m of investment directly attributable to the events and 100 companies have had the chance to pitch to over 600 venture capitalists.

London and Partners self-funding (2)

Susan Hall: Please give the estimated date when London and Partners will be self-funded without any GLA subsidy.

The Mayor: London & Partners (L&P) is set up as a not-for-profit public private partnership to promote London internationally as the best place to invest, visit and study and grow.
Its public partnership structure means that L&P will continue to receive grant funding from the GLA whilst also securing private sector funding from commercial activities to re-invest into the promotion of London.
According to Deloitte and London First’s 2014 report, ‘Benchmarking the effectiveness of London’s promotional system’, L&P receives less public funding than the city-level promotional agencies for other global cities, with L&P receiving £177 millionless than Singapore, £72 million less than Hong Kong, £21 million less than Paris, and £9 million less than Berlin.

New Metropolitan Line Signalling

Susan Hall: How many signal failures and faulty trains have there been on the Metropolitan Line since the new signalling system was installed last year?

The Mayor: On 2 September 2019, operation of the new signalling system was extended from Latimer Road to Euston Square on the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines and from there to Finchley Road on the Metropolitan line, and between Paddington and Edgware Road on the District and Circle lines. There have been 105 incidents involving signals and trains up to 1 February 2020 that were related to the new signalling system. Of these, 65 were faulty train incidents and 40 were signalling incidents.
During this period there have also been 181 faulty train incidents and 106 signalling incidents which were unrelated to the new signalling system.
Please note, the number of incidents includes any delay that has been recorded as two minutes or over in overall duration.
A number of improvements have been made to the equipment, software, trains and trackside, which took some time to implement, but have led to gradual improvement of reliability. TfL is continuing to build on this and further work is planned. I know the last few months haven’t been easy for Metropolitan line customers, but I am assured that TfL will continue to address the issues and do everything possible to improve the service, working around the clock on what is a world-first and very complex programme.